Showered with money or gifts and vulnerable to the influences of social media posts glamorising drug-dealing, the boy is loaded up with a backpack carrying between 150-200 'wraps' - packages of heroin or crack cocaine.

In another potentially deadly twist, there's a good chance he'll also be armed with a knife or a machete.

He'll catch the train by himself from Manchester to Harrogate or another North Yorkshire town, before spending the day distributing drugs to the 'customers' reached by that morning's text messages.

The above story is given as a classic example of the county lines model by North Yorkshire Police's Temporary Detective Sergeant Tom Barker - one of a seven-strong team tasked with tackling county lines crime in Harrogate.

Eventually, when the operator has enough trust in his young sidekick, he'll be told to take 500 wraps with him and spend the week in Harrogate, commandeering the house of a regular customer to live and deal from - an action described by police as 'cuckooing'.

"Typically, end users are quite happy to have host a young drug dealer, as it means they'll get free drugs," Detective Sergeant Barker said.

It's a lifestyle that opens up young people to a variety of abuses - particularly physical and sexual - and is why Detective Sergeant Barker says it's so important to smash the lines and childrens' involvement in them.

Rather than catching and charging young people, Detective Sergeant Barker said it's about knowing the signs of when a young person is at risk, and preventing them from progressing down the wrong path.